Top 10s of 2007 (Media)

[oscar jubis]

Two of the films listed raise questions about which films are elegible for inclusion. I consider the magnificent Killer of Sheep (tied at #4) a repertory or revival film because it has had commercial distribution (albeit limited) in the past. On the other hand, Burnett's second feature My Brother's Wedding never had a commercial release and the version made available this year is completely new (it has been re-edited and reconfigured by the director) thus can more logically be considered a 2007 release.

The other film in question is Pedro Costa's Colossal Youth, which to my knowledge was not released commercially (I have it listed near the top of my undistributed 2007 list based on a glorious screening at the Miami International Film Festival).

Surprises? Zodiac, King of Kong, Hot Fuzz and Knocked Up placing so high, the absence of the highly acclaimed Persepolis and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and the inclusion of Lars and the Real Girl and The Host.


VILLAGE VOICE/ NEW TIMES CRITICS POLL

Robert Wilonsky , Jim Ridley , Ella Taylor , Scott Foundas , J. Hoberman , and Nathan Lee
Published: December 27, 2007

1. There Will Be Blood: The Texas tea bubbles up from the ground like primordial blood at the beginning of Paul Thomas Anderson's turn-of-the-century oil-prospecting epic (which won't open in most parts of the country until January and stars Daniel Day-Lewis). Nearly three hours later, the blood spilling across the floor of a Beverly Hills bowling alley looks suspiciously like crude. In between, we are held rapt by a big, bold, iconic story of the greed that drives some men to greatness and just as often proves their undoing. (Foundas)

2. I'm Not There: Semiotics, symbolist poetry, and Velvet Goldmine are not without their use when contemplating the intricacies of Todd Haynes's deconstructed biopic — not to mention everything ever written about Bob Dylan. But for this non-Boomer, having lived through none of the era chronicled, knowing little of Dylan's life, and caring not much more for his music, I'm Not There struck me — hard — as an emotional experience unencumbered by historical baggage. (Lee)

3. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: The title of Romanian director Cristian Mungiu's Cannes Film Festival prizewinner refers to the length of a pregnancy — specifically the one a college student named Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) seeks to terminate in a midsize Romanian town circa 1987, when Ceausescu is still in power and abortions are illegal. Those who accused Judd Apatow's Knocked Up of being a thinly veiled Family Values polemic might find 4 Months more to their liking, but it becomes clear early on that Mungiu is less interested in the life-versus-choice debate than in the way people living in a socially repressive society adapt to circumstance. (Foundas)

4. Killer of Sheep: Poetic in the very best sense — the exaltation of bedrock existence through concrete detail, closely observed — Charles Burnett's 1977 film about a Watts family man making ends meet with a literal dead-end job proved to be the triumph of the year in its long-delayed theatrical release. Uncommercial, eh? Milestone's successful distribution showed that its audience was narrowly focused, all right — to roughly anyone who's ever come home beat and soul-sick from a day at work. (Ridley)

4. Southland Tales: Muddled. Self-involved. Overbearingly ambitious. Insufferable. Funny how the critical mud slung at Donnie Darko on release has the same consistency as the shit storm that raged against Southland Tales, yet another — how dare he!? — ultra-convoluted sci-fi satire from the incorrigibly precocious Richard Kelly. Southland Tales looks and feels more like life in 2007 than Juno, In The Valley of Elah, and Michael Clayton combined. (Lee)

5. Zodiac: Obsessed with codes, graphs, symbols, and technology, David Fincher returns the serial killer genre to its roots. This is a movie for number crunchers, systems analysts, archaeologists of the analogue era, and anyone interested in how we came to inhabit the cognitive chaos depicted in Southland Tales. (Lee)

6. Ratatouille: Not just a gourmand rat, or a beautifully animated French kitchen, but, as with Brad Bird's other work of genius, The Incredibles, Ratatouille makes a witty argument for passion and cooperative excellence. (Taylor)

7. Colossal Youth: In this heroic film by Portuguese director Pedro Costa, a Cape Verdean immigrant named Ventura wanders dazedly between the gutted-out remnants of his former residence in a Lisbon housing tenement and a couple of prospective new ones, crossing paths with a succession of fellow travelers whom he refers to as his "children." Difficult to describe but impossible to forget, Costa's film is like a waking dream. (Foundas)

8. Eastern Promises: Like A History of Violence, David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises could almost pass for an exceptionally well-made B movie. In fact this gangster flick is a dark, rhapsodic fairy tale set in a world populated by angels, devils, walking corpses, and human wolves — and most impressively by Viggo Mortensen. (Hoberman)

8. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters: Cynics will grouse this isn't as important as Sicko or No End in Sight — when, yeah, it kinda is. Not because Seth Gordon's doc about two dudes vying for title of World's Best Donkey Kong Player in the History of Ever will change the world, but it might just change your life. Who doesn't want to be awesome, even at something totally pointless? (Wilonsky)

9. Regular Lovers: Parisian hotties riot in the street, smoke dope, boogie to the Kinks, fuck, mope, pose, lounge, and stare beautifully at the walls of beautiful apartments in Philippe Garrel's film. This, mes amis, is why cinema was invented. (Lee)

10. Hot Fuzz: Hands down the funniest movie of 2007 — not so much a parody of buddy-picture conventions as an affectionate rehabilitation — Edgar Wright's incredible two-headed transplant of Hollywood cop-socky histrionics onto the tweedy British whodunit was the only balls-out comedy this year with a visual style to match its verbal wit. If only every muscle-headed shoot-'em-up were set in a precinct house with a swear jar. (Ridley)

10. Knocked Up: Come for the dirty words and bong hits; stay for the trenchant observations — no, seriously. Sure, it's the one-liners that linger ("You look like a cholo dressed up for Easter"), but even they barely obscure life's biggest truth, which is: "Marriage is like a tense, unfunny version of Everybody Loves Raymond, only it doesn't last 22 minutes. It lasts forever." (Wilonsky)

10. Manufactured Landscapes: The opener of Jennifer Baichwal's beautiful documentary, a tracking shot that takes about eight minutes to roam from one end of a Chinese electronics factory floor to the other, tells you all you need to know about modern labor, our disposable world, and who will own the global economy. (Taylor)

10. Private Fears in Public Places: Directed with light-fingered mastery by Alain Resnais, now age 84 and fully indulging his delight in golden-age cinematic gloss, this exquisite ensemble comedy-drama about the perils of seeking love late in life resembles a Vincente Minnelli musical with the songs elided, leaving only the persistent ache of unexpressed desires. (Ridley)

Honorable Mentions: Into the Wild, Black Book, West of the Tracks, No Country for Old Men, Syndromes and a Century, My Kid Could Paint That, Grindhouse, Offside, Day Night Day Night, Away from Her, Once, Paprika, Lars and the Real Girl, The Host, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Honor de Cavalleria, The Band's Visit, Lake of Fire, No End in Sight, The Bourne Ultimatum, Terror's Advocate, The Savages, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and Music and Lyrics.

[oscar jubis]

First number after the title is the number of points received by the film and the second number indicates how many of the 102 critics polled listed the film in their top 10.


1 There Will Be Blood 402 56
2 No Country for Old Men 328 52
3 Zodiac 314 47
4 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days 276 43
5 I'm Not There 241 37
6 Syndromes and a Century 208 31
7 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 185 27
8 Killer of Sheep 161 22
9 Ratatouille 135 25
10 Colossal Youth 132 19
11 Black Book 125 24
12 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford 123 24
13 Eastern Promises 114 24
14 Once 112 21
15 Michael Clayton 103 19
16 Offside 97 17
17 Into the Wild 93 17
18 The Host 83 22
19 Away from Her 78 15
20 Regular Lovers 70 12
21 I Don't Want to Sleep Alone 67 12
22 Grindhouse 62 14
23 Southland Tales 62 11
24 Private Fears in Public Places 62 10
25 The Bourne Ultimatum 61 10
26 Before the Devil Knows You're Dead 60 13
27 Persepolis 59 14
28 Atonement 57 9
29 No End in Sight 56 10
30 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 48 12
31 Knocked Up 48 10
32 Into Great Silence 47 8
33 Bamako 46 8
34 The Darjeeling Limited 46 7
35 12:08 East of Bucharest 44 10
36 Lady Chatterley 40 6
37 The Savages 39 9
38 Brand Upon the Brain! 36 9
39 Rescue Dawn 33 7
40 The Band's Visit 33 7
41 Hot Fuzz 32 6
42 Superbad 31 7
43 Control 31 6
44 Lust, Caution 31 6
45 Lars and the Real Girl 30 6
46 Day Night Day Night 29 6
47 Lake of Fire 27 8
48 Paprika 27 6
49 13 Lakes 26 4
50 Terror's Advocate 24 6
51 West of the Tracks 24 4
52 Margot at the Wedding 23 7
53 Honor de Cavalleria (Quixotic) 23 4
54 Juno 22 7
55 Belle Toujours 21 4
La Vie en Rose 21 4
The Golden Door 21 4
This is England 21 4
59 Gone Baby Gone 20 5
60 Starting Out in the Evening 20 4
61 The Wayward Cloud 20 3
62 Exiled 18 4
63 Manufactured Landscapes 18 3
64 Joshua 17 4
65 3:10 to Yuma 15 3
66 King of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters 15 2
My Kid Could Paint That 15 2
The Wind That Shakes the Barley 15 2
69 Across the Universe 14 2
70 We Own the Night 13 4
Youth Without Youth 13 4

[Chris Knipp]

It's a bit misleading to give so much emphasis to the Voice/New Times list based on a few colleague-critics' 10-best lists, and the Voice/LWeekly film poll of inde media critics and some others. They are not necessarily representative of critics in general. You say it's surprising that Hot Fuzz rated so high. Well, on the poll of indie mmedia critics it's #43, which isn't particularly high, is it? And Knocked Up is #31. I think Robert Wilonsky , Jim Ridley , Ella Taylor , Scott Foundas , J. Hoberman , and Nathan Lee talk to each other. One would hope so. That is why their choices overlap as do those of the three main NYTimes critics.. Somebody likes somkething a lot, and others follow. Critics unfortunately are as much sheep as the public, in their own smaller spheres. There's no need to try to figure out what all this signifies. It signifies nothing.

What we need is a wider-raniging record of reviewers' lists of the year's best, to get an idea of the ranking. The second Voice/LA Weekley poll is more useful, since it comprises the views of a much larger number of critics--but it's still not representative of the ratings you might get from a more mainstream group. Metacritic's ratings might be better. So let's look at that list:

METACRITIC

The Best-Reviewed Movies of 2007

1. Ratatouille 96
2. Killer of Sheep 94
3. There Will Be Blood 92
4. Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The 92
5. No Country for Old Men 90
6. Persepolis 89
7. No End in Sight 89
8. Once 88
9. Away from Her 88
10. This Is England 86
11. Bourne Ultimatum, The 85
12. Savages, The 85
13. Offside 85
14. Knocked Up 85
15. Atonement 85
16. Host, The 85
17. In the Shadow of the Moon 84
18. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead 84
19. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, The 83
20. Triad Election 83

But in my opinion this is no more the best films of the year than the other lists. It's just the movies that happened by some chance or luck to do well in reviews, by the estimation of the Metacritic people. And if we go to the 82 ratings, we come right away to Seeeney Todd and Michael Clayton, which appear on a lot of 10-best lists right now.

What I prefer to do is make up my own list--actually lists--at least I have to put foreign and American films in separate lists, and as we are noticing, there are non-released films people can't resist mentioning, as well as questionable items like Killer of Sheep. And thenb I like to go down other people's lists and pick out what I think are the least justified top-listed films. Among these will definitely be Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Black Book, Thg Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and Eastern Promises, which are all films I think the critics singled out unnecessarily, despite flaws or lacks too serious to allow them to be put in anybody's top ten.

I'm not going to say anything about Knocked Up and Atonement right now. I can see how they won praise, even though I would not rate them so high as the crowd did. But I'm going to question The King of King: A Fistful of Quarters. That little documentary really is far less significant or well executed than various other documentaries, and it's high rating here is at best a fluke. But this is not such a disaster, because No End in Sight rates significantly higher, as it should.

[Chris Knipp]

P.s. I would agree on the oddity of including Colossal Youth, but I believe it had a brief theatrical release in New York in August. And these are New York critics, hence its inclusion, and no doubt the buzz among them in its favor, which I don't share but you emphatically do. Note Manohla Dargis' August 3 review (http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/movies/03colo.html) of it in the NYTimes, "opens today in Manhattan. . .At the Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue, at Second Street, East Village. " This I think would be considered a commercial release.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
It's a bit misleading to give so much emphasis to the Voice/New Times list based on a few colleague-critics' 10-best lists
You are right. I don't think it helps us to draw conclusions about American critics in general because the sample is too small. It's just that the Voice has traditionally been a reputable venue for film criticism and I believe it continues to be.

I think Robert Wilonsky, Jim Ridley, Ella Taylor, Scott Foundas, J. Hoberman, and Nathan Lee talk to each other. One would hope so. That is why their choices overlap as do those of the three main NYTimes critics.. Somebody likes somkething a lot, and others follow. Critics unfortunately are as much sheep as the public, in their own smaller spheres.
I believe that most critics watch only a fraction of what's available. There are critics who mostly watch what they are asked by their bosses to review. Anyway, one has to make a concerted effort to review a number of films which receive very limited distribution. I'm convinced there are tons of critics who didn't watch DayNightDayNight (#46 Voice/LA Times), an award-winning film I didn't like a lot, and Honor de Cavalleria (#53), which will definitely make my lists. I also wonder if, had most critics seen the highly idiosyncratic The Hawk is Dying by Florida wunderkid Julian Goldberger and starring Paul Giamatti, the film would get some respect. (maybe not, it's merely a "runner-up" on my own list).

My point is that many good-to-great films released have only been seen by a minority of critics polled, and it's something to keep in mind. I do agree the critics at the Voice and the ones at the Times "talk to each other". I believe this affects what they deem important to watch, but I personally don't believe that most critics allow others to influence what goes into their top 10s. It's too personal an issue for that to happen. Hoberman was right when he called these lists (a year ago) a sort of "autobiography".


The second Voice/LA Weekley poll is more useful, since it comprises the views of a much larger number of critics--but it's still not representative of the ratings you might get from a more mainstream group. Metacritic's ratings might be better.
That would imply that "mainstream" critics are "better" than so-called alternative ones. It should be stated that Metacritic polls a smaller group of critics and that, perhaps, these critics don't go after the "little", limited-release films that won't advertise in the mainstream publications, if there's any budget to advertise anywhere. Then again, my favorite-so-far English-language film did better at Metacritic (#9 compared to #19 in the other poll).


But in my opinion this is no more the best films of the year than the other lists. It's just the movies that happened by some chance or luck to do well in reviews, by the estimation of the Metacritic people.
The value of these lists to me is that I go out of my way and do everything possible to watch every film listed in them. The lists make it easier for me to give more films a chance to impress me.


What I prefer to do is make up my own list--actually lists--at least I have to put foreign and American films in separate lists
Me too, but as you know I separate my lists by language not nationality. So, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly would, for instance, go on the foreign list and the Canadian Away from Her in the English-language list.

as we are noticing, there are non-released films people can't resist mentioning, as well as questionable items like Killer of Sheep.
Questionable not because of merit but because it's a matter of fact that this amazing made-in-the-70s film has had commercial runs before 2007. The Romanian film is 2008, as far as I'm concerned. What about the case of The Lives of Others (opened in December 2006 but only in LA) and Inland Empire (which didn't open in the Bay Area until February 2007, and opened here in March). Both elegible for 2007 lists, as far as I'm concerned. Colossal Youth played in NYC as part of a Pedro Costa retrospective organized by the folks at Film Forum (i hope to get a chance to watch Bones, Vanda's Room and the other 3 films included). It wasn't a bonafide commercial run of the film (and by the way, it still doesn't have a home video distributor). I will list the film at or near the top of my Undistributed list.

And then I like to go down other people's lists and pick out what I think are the least justified top-listed films. Among these will definitely be Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Black Book, Thg Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and Eastern Promises, which are all films I think the critics singled out unnecessarily, despite flaws or lacks too serious to allow them to be put in anybody's top ten.
I'm glad you state your opinions. Obviously now, we are in the realm of personal taste. I actually like all these films but only the last two are likely to get listed by me as "Top 10 films" of 2007.

[Chris Knipp]

I don't know exactly why you think that critics miss a lot of "good to great" films every year. They certainly are in line for the possibility of missing some, since indeed nobody can see everything. And I would agree that some critics try a lot harder than others to see a very wide spectrum. Some are lazy, I'm afraid--or dried up, or too old to get out for all the screennings. No doubt a lot of reviewers miss very small very limited release films, though in NYC they get to catch many of those too, if they want to.*. But are they "good to great"? You seem to back down on that a bit yourself when you go over specific instances. Actually though it is only a small sample, , the two Village Voice lists are some of the more sophisticated critics, and we are agreed on that.. And insofar as they can go to NYC screenings the Voice-polled writers do I think have access to a lot of film releases. I believe San Francisco screenings are more limited in range of offerings and later in time. The writers who can certainly go to some major film festivals and that adds to what they see, as it has for you and me, but that gives rise to problems in listing movies at year's end, because a lot of festival releases are not theatrical ones. I will accept your insistence that Costa's Colossal Youth was not a commercial release, even though it was shown at a public theater and tickets were sold for showings of it--it was "just" part of a film series.

You misread me when I said the Metacritic list might be "better". I mean "better" in the sense of more representative of the majority of reviewers. I am not saying "mainstream critics" (whatever that means) are "better". But I don't see how people like Wilonsky, who is on Ebert and Roeper on TV, or has repeatedly been, or Hoberman, who has a wide following and is very widely read, are not "mainstream." "Alternative" is a meaningless term when they are syndicated or read by hundreds of thousands of people.

*I just noticed that Bruce Bennett (http://www.nysun.com/authors/Bruce+Bennett) who writes for the New York Sun, is a NYC film critic published regularly in a paper who reviews a lot of the smaller NYC-screened films.

It would be lovely if the critics who "talk to each other" (which is not a metaphor--they see each other all the time) didn't "let" other critics influence their top ten choices, but the fact that certain movies come up on the NYTimes critics' lists and not on the Voice ones', and vice versa, shows that they do influence each other. If you work with or under Hoberman and he keeps saying that I'm Not There is the movie of the year, it's going to make it hard for you not to list it.

But you have a point that nobody sees everything, and critics may miss something that was released (on a very limited basis).

Language is a good category in some cases, nationalities in others. Arabic is another category, along with Spanish, that overrides national borders. But would you list a French African film as French? Probably not. It's more African than French. Schnabel 's movie is an unusual case, but John Sayles directed a Spanish language film a few years ago, so it does happen.
I'm glad you state your opinions. Obviously now, we are in the realm of personal taste. I actually like all these films but only the last two are likely to get listed by me as "Top 10 films" of 2007. Yes, I am getting into taste. Isn't it all about taste? I thought so. What else is it? Fact? I don't think so. I don't know why you always bristle at the idea of my exercising my taste, while you give such importance to the taste of two film critics over all others. Hoberman's dislike of No Country for Old Men is not a statement of fact about its quality but an opinion. And he doesn't make a very good case for that opinion. He's better maybe on his loves than his hates.

I like those movies too, actually, except I don't think The Black Book is illustrative of much other than a lot of money and effort, but I appreciate the skill of Cronenberg and I admire some of his films very much indeed. I just don't happen to understand the sudden decision that he is one of our greater auteurs, or rather, Canada's...this is new, and, of course, you are inspired or justified in this judgment by specific statements by Mr. Hoberman. My point is just that these films up high on the list such as (prime example) Before the Devil Knows You're Dead are simply not bad--not at all: that would matter much less really, because it would be obvious--, but OVERRATED. This is very different from bad. It just means these are coming up higher on people's lists than they deserve to be, apparently because of the herd behavior that characterizes all human action. Critics, whether you realize it or not, write reviews to influence people. Hoberman's piece introducing the lists is even called "There Will Be Consensus." And did he influence you or you influence him about No Country for Old Men, that I don’t know, but thought it comes in #2 in the Voice critics poll, Hoberman hates it, and the Voice has a piece by one of their non-star writers collecting anti-No Country views as if there were a consensus against it. There does not appear to be. The notion that it is a soulless "pinball machine" (a slander I probably should not even mention) with nothing at the core is a judgment that suggests Hoberman and his followers did not listen to the dialogue or consider the relation of this film to the novel.


Though you may not approve my getting "into taste" you at least can't say I am trying to bully other writers or readers into adopting my point of view on which films are the year's best. But I try to point out where I think a film has gotten a bad deal (while having nonetheless been seen--having been unseen or ignored is certainly the worst bad deal of all for a good movie) or where it has gotten much too good a deal.

Hoberman says that if more critics had gotten to see Colossal Youth it would probably been listed as Worst Film of th Year. I'm not exactly sure what he means by that. He doesn't explain. You will find that Bruce Bennett treats it with a great deal of respect. Hoberman's opinion of Colossal Youth no doubt is positive, but his remarks about it seem to have been rather neutral. It was Nathan Lee who reviewed it for the Voice, and he deals with it carefully, calling it "visually rapturous in its abject way" and saying it " satisfies my minimum requirement of a movie"--both ways of a film buff to say This is good stuff, but it's hard going. Not for the "mainstream" critic--the housewife in Des Moines need not go out to see it.

[Chris Knipp]

Just came across the Film Comment "End-of-Year Critics' Poll. (http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/poll/2007pollcritics.html) The Best Unreleased category is an interesting list and here it is only in part (there are 30 films listed in all):

1. Silent Light Carlos Reygadas, Mex./Fr./Neth. 175
2. Flight of the Red Balloon Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tai./Fr. 171
3. Paranoid Park Gus Van Sant, France/U.S. 134
4. Secret Sunshine Lee Chang-dong, S. Korea 127
5. My Winnipeg Guy Maddin, Canada 97
6. Useless* Jia Zhang-Ke, China/Hong Kong 95
7. Still Life Jia Zhang-Ke, China/Hong Kong 91
8. In the City of Sylvia* José Luis Guerín, Spain 76
9. The Last Mistress Catherine Breillat, France/Italy 70
10. The Romance of Astrée and Céladon* Eric Rohmer, France/Italy/Spain 57
11. The Duchess of Langeais Jacques Rivette, Fr./Ger. 68
12. Alexandra Alexander Sokurov, France/Russia 44
13. The Unforeseen Laura Dunn, U.S. 43

I just want to call Filmleaf people's attention to these movies which some may be unaware of. (Many of these are here because they were in the NYFF--in which case I've seen them.)

Only the starred ones lack a US distributor, and personally I don't feel missing Useless (NYFF; but see Howard Schumann's sympathetic review (http://www.cinescene.com/howard/ohhumanity.htm)), or the Rohmer costume piece is necessarily crucial; but In the City of Sylvia (NYFF) is quite beautiful. I am not a fan of Secret Sunshine (NYFF) either; I felt it had serious flaws and went on too long. Nor am I a fan of Guy Maddin, but I haven't seen his new one.

I was however very moved and impressed by Still Life, which has recently been shown and reviewed in New York (I saw it in a special screening in Paris). The Last Mistress (NYFF) was a revelation for me--a totally different, witty, colorful side of Breillat. Rivette's Duchess of Langneoais is coming soon to Bay Area art theaters: I have not seen it but am looking forward to it. Hou's Red Balloon (NYFF) film is delightful, Alexandra (NYFF) is a must-see for Sokurov fans, I love the delicate, subtle Paranoid Park (NYFF; also shown in Paris in October).

The one I really want to single out (as obviously do the critics in the poll) is Reygadas' Silent Light (NYFF) --very remarkable and memorable--an exceptionally sensitive and powerful look into a sort of socially hermetic world, a Mennonite community in Mexico who speak the Mennonite's own Dutch-German dialect, Plautdietsch. But the experience Reygadas provides isn't quaint; it's intense and searingly pure. Reygadas reaches a new level here above what I've seen before. He no longer seems to play with his material but to serve it.